God, Fate, or Time?
by TheMaddnessOfDr.Strangelove
Summary: Complete. With Dr. Beckett righting a wrong in his stead, a displaced and skeptical House begins a differential diagnosis of a different sort in the waiting room, questioning the motivations and existence of the force controlling Project Quantum Leap.
1. Prologue

_Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top-secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the project accelerator, and vanished._

_He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brain-wave transmissions with Al, the project observer, who appears in the form of a hologram, that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home._

Prologue

The invisible hand released its constricting grip on his throat and once again receded back into the depths of the time stream. With its departure came the glow of sensation, laced with a new feeling of exhilaration trapped in a foggy numbness. Like being born again. Yes. Fresh, unsullied, the child had been pushed back into the worldly plane, wide eyed and confused, blinded by the fear of not knowing that tightened the pit of his stomach. The deadness lifted. The numbness disappeared, replaced by a sharp tingle. He took his first uninhibited breath outside the womb of the quantum realm. Alive. He felt good, but the churning in his gullet alerted to a panic. Of what, he was unsure, but it was familiar. As he tried to place it, his brain lit afire, twirling madly out of control. He could feel his eyes narrow. Finally he eased off, unable to maintain the concentration.

His ears popped and his vision cleared from black into a soapy blur of color and light. He could see the vague outline of forms, but it looked as though it were a picture, drawn by a precocious child that had refused to stay within the limits of the lines. The fear was still there, praying he would address it again. Instead, he concerned himself with reasserting. He searched his thoughts for the scattered bits of his memory. He found he could not locate them…or rather, not enough of them to get an idea of what they were, not unlike the out of focus photograph his vision had become. In that finding, he realized the nature of his fear. Not knowing. Again the phrase pelted his Swiss cheesed brain. _Who am I,_ his thoughts finally managed, freed from the groggy aftereffects of the leap. _Leap?_ The word seemed so familiar.

"House?" He could hear a muffled voice call his name. No…that wasn't his name…but he naturally attributed it to himself. Why? "House?" The voice came again, clearer and obviously concerned. With the clearing of his hearing, his vision followed suit, revealing the scene that had more or less splattered itself in front of him. They all looked like snowmen. Doctors. Hospital. His mind pegged them unquestioningly. He knew the setting like the back of his hand. He'd been in many over the years. An operating room. The surgical team was scurrying about around him, their gowns crinkling like windbreakers. He smiled, patting himself down, getting the first glimpse of his body, similarly dressed in surgical garb. He wasn't wearing a mask. He could feel that much. He turned and said, "I could contaminate the field." It came out rote. He knew the protocol, but not knowing how he knew it was like a pin needle stabbing his brain.

"That never stopped you before," a masked man replied. His eyes stared inquisitively, yet surprisingly candidly for man up to his elbows in…blood. His arms were bloody. The still somewhat dazed newcomer followed the blood trail to a gaping wound. The chest had been splayed out like a dissection. The heart was still pumping. He felt his jaw go slack, and his eyes wide. He took a step back, nearly knocking into another person, who stopped his tumble with a firm but petite hand across his back. The first thing he saw were her eyes. Catty and piercing. Beautiful. The mask hid the rest of her features. He could see the hint of auburn peaking out from under the cap. Beautiful. The word stuck.

"House!" The surgeon. "Are you going to tell me what you found out or not?!"

"Huh?" Was all he could muster, followed by, "Sam…" The sight of fresh blood had jarred it loose. The rest of the holes began to fill in like an army of ants sliding off the edge of a pond one after another. _Sam Beckett. Dr. Sam Beckett._ Explained the medical knowledge. _You have seven degrees, actually._ The voice in his head was his own, but it conducted itself like a separate entity, parting with its information as though part of a friendly conversation. _Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention…you're trapped in time._ The Swiss cheesing had finally let up, but Sam was still in a hell of a bind.

"House!" The man was agitated now "Either you make your point or get out of here!"

"House," the younger woman's voice coaxed, "isn't this the part where you dazzle everyone with your epiphany?"

"Not cancer?" It came out a question, and where from Sam was not sure. Perhaps some product of the slight mind merging with the man he had just replaced.

"I know," she confirmed patronizingly as if she were addressing a small child or feeble-minded senior citizen. "You said that already. What is it? What does she have?"

"House! Out with it! I'm swimming in this patient's juices!"

"It's…uh…its uh…" Interrupting his brilliant string of analysis as though an actual answer might somehow slip out of his mouth, the operating room door slammed open behind him. He turned in time to see a group of people backing into the already crowded room.

"Hey! You can't come in here!"

"Don't say anything," Sam warned the surgeon mechanically, noting the intruders' hands. They were grabbing sky. Something Sam had seen all to often. As the crowd moved closer, he saw a break, and a man with a gun. "Oh boy," he sighed.


	2. December 23, 2009

Chapter One: December 23, 2009

Wherever and _whenever_ Sam leaped, trouble followed like the flap of a cape. One the quantum physicist was trying, in an exercise of futility, to out run. Can't get away from something tied around your neck. The thought of his neckline conjured images of other metaphors for Sam's constant brush with trouble, the most macabre of them a noose, with a long rope at the end, like a leash, extending out the operating room door into the distance toward the crook of an owner's arm. A hangman Sam could never see, and who seemed to have taken a great liking to throwing a fair share of bullets and mad men his way. Once more, he was expected to drop medical advice in the midst of a butcher shop like a magician with the answer up his sleeve, right next to the deck of cards and the pigeon.

"Which one of you is House?" The grimly voice croaked, like a teenager going through puberty.

The silence that followed sank Sam's heart, but the exacerbated feeling was expected, and annoyingly proverbial. "I'm guessin' that would be me," he sighed deeply, shrugging his shoulders, careful not to drop his hands. Yes, yes, it's always Dr. Beckett who has to face the heat of the blade at the chopping block. Meanwhile, Charles Darnay gets to sit it out in the waiting room, listening to Al's raunchy stories about life in the service. Speaking of the ever chauvinistic Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci, just where the hell was the devil when you needed him?

"Front and center, doctor," the voice behind the gun barrel commanded.

Sam stepped away from the rest of the ducklings, accepting the label of goose.

The blood soaked surgeon broke in, albeit less vigorous. "I have to operate on this patient. If you cont—"

"Did I tell you to speak!?" The gun's gaze swept into view of the splayed chest and its overseer. "Shut up or they'll be two on the slab instead of one." The guy sounded like Edward G. Robinson and looked like Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols, but not as a Sex Pistol. This fellow looked more like the Public Image incarnation. Crazy hair full of carroty red stuff, that stuck out like a crown of wily thorns, and a suit that might have been nice and well fitting before it got run over by a convoy. _Could be wrong, could be right, could be black, could be white_. Rise. He remembered the song. One of the dozens he and Al had programmed into Ziggy's memory bank when they were still building up the project. PiL had always been more attune to Sam Beckett's nature than Lydon's previous work. The punk era had put off the young scientist, but he never criticized it, somehow understanding the need for it, like the need for a sick body to vomit up what's killing it. The post-punk PiL was like the lightheaded reprieve after the heaving, and the same punk message from before was made more palatable. _Your time has come, your second skin. You climb so high and gain so low. Walk through the valley. The written word is a lie._

"Move, I said!" The angry gunman's shout brought him back to the now. It was so strange that this man's likeness had taken him so deep into his memories, so deep that he remembered exact feelings and thoughts about a subject, down to the last detail. The sometimes infinitely obscure reminiscences of his life that were freed after each leap were even more motivating and appealing than what he lost, but at the worst possible time.

Suddenly, 'Johnny' had Sam by the crook of his neck, so to speak, the gun pressed squarely at the base of his skull. "You and me are going for a walk."

"Wait!" Cat eyes. She emerged like a guardian angel, ripping away her mask like a shielded helmet. Gorgeous. "My name is Dr. Remy Hadley." No time to make like a negotiator. Then again, Sam couldn't complain, he'd never been one and it looked as though he'd never get the chance. "You don't want to do this." Her voice was deep and soft at the same time.

"What do you know about what I want?"

"Please. Look…you can't just drag him out of here. Security's already shutting this place down. You'll never make it. Just tell—"

"Then, I'll just have to show them I mean business." He pointed the gun at her and fired.


	3. Waiting Room of the Damned

_Author's Note: As it will become relevant in this chapter and beyond, the author would like to point out, simply as a matter of clarification, that for the purposes, specifically the mechanics, of this story, that the tale recognizes the recanted lore of Quantum Leap's season four finale (that carries through the remainder of the show), which redefines Quantum Leaping as Sam's body actually occupying the leapee's time and space, thus only being covered by their aura, and conversely, the leapee's body is in fact inside the waiting room, only covered by Sam's aura, rather than previous seasons' lore that Sam actually inhabits the leapee's body. The author realizes this has always been up for debate among QL fans, and is simply recognizing one canon over the other to accommodate certain necessary story elements. _

* * *

Chapter Two: Waiting Room of the Damned.

"Patient is a fifty year old male with a history of chronic pain and prescription drug abuse," fired off the misanthropic diagnostician. Even as he scribbled the symptoms on the board, he could feel himself returning, if only scratch by scratch to the sound of the marker. A little disconcerting really. The clearer his head became, the more real everything around him seemed. But, rather than accept his own mind's directness toward the truth, he did what he always did when he wanted to keep reality away. He hid inside the puzzle. "Patient is currently suffering from complex audiovisual hallucinations. This isn't the first time our loony toon started talking to things that weren't there,"–_Cutthroat Bitch_—"but it _is_ the first time the fantasy has taken him away from his _natural habitat_ and constructed a completely new environment." For all he knew, he was standing in an alley somewhere chatting with a trashcan while he scrawled with dog crap onto the wall of a strip club. The sound of his nasal rattling sounded good, though. After not hearing it for so long…and seeing…feeling…all of his senses seemed like they were a mile down a desert road behind him, still vaguely blurry on the horizon. The fuzziest, IE, the farthest down the road, completely faded into the heat distortion, was his memory. He knew nothing…and everything…he couldn't latch onto half of his medical career, but remembered with frightening clarity the song that was playing during his first make out session in med school. _Dancing in the Dark_. Just the thought aggravated him…and slowed him down as he tried desperately to fill in the potholes…like his name…"Patient…is also dealing with severe memory lapses."

"Doctor House." The voice's owner sounded like he had been chewing on lava rocks.

"Did I also mention the patient is a stud! With salt and pepper hair and blue eyes that pierce hard but press softly?"

"Hah," Al tittered. "You're talking about yourself."

House slowly craned his head around. The rest of his body followed. His right leg whined in protest, instantly forcing him to lean onto the cane that had been given to him upon his…arrival. The infarction. He kept forgetting that, too. Maybe because he wanted to. "Mental note. My mind's acting stupid…" He still couldn't get over the image his psyche had gone with. An old guy who might have been a lady killer in his time, but who now looked as though the handsome, debonair, panty peeler had been shoved into a microwave and put on defrost for a couple of years. More like a couple of decades. To say his suit was ostentatious was like saying a head-on car crash at ninety miles an hour might cause a boo-boo. The entire ensemble, down his waistcoat, shirt and tie, was a deep purple. On his coat and slacks were thick (and muddy) burgundy stripes. He looked like the illegitimate son of the Joker and Willy Wonka. _Nicholson's J-Man. I don't drink that Nolan kool-aid. An—Damn it! Focus! _He winced, unable to stop the firestorm suddenly awakened inside his head. _Alright,_ he though feverishly, sensing a break in the delirium. He looked over the older man. He didn't recognize him. His mind had constructed a whole new person…maybe from bits and pieces of people he knew? His suit was brazen. Flashy. His mind trying to give him a clue? Something in plain sight? Or maybe it was the muddy red. Had he seen the color before his brain escaped to the delusion? Was it the answer to the diagnosis? Maybe he hit his head and the stuff that oozed out looked that. He touched his head. Didn't feel anything oozing. He looked down at himself, at his own attire. White from head to toe…and silky like pajamas. The cane the old guy had given him. Wooden, not metal. Spray-painted white like his clothes. He'd asked for the dry erase board, too…but they were always white. No…this one was clear…a see-through one. He remembered using one like that…a while back…a few months...or years. He looked up. The room was blue. Everything was a blank solid color except for the other man. Was that a clue, also? What was his mind trying to tell him? He tried to arrange the specifics into some sort of differential, but coupled with the fact that his med school classes were…gone…and there at the same time…Christ…how to describe it…Swiss cheesed…was that his word? Didn't sound like him. _Damn it._ The scariest part was the memory. He couldn't remember where he was before he came to be inside the big blue inkwell, looking at a funny little man.

Nothing fit…except…insanity.

"Doctor House," Al broke in again, "you're not crazy." His hands were up, palms out as if protecting against an upcoming outburst.

A common occurrence? _Of course not. Because it's never happened before. Because this isn't real. _

"Doctor, you're not crazy. All I can suggest is that you come back to the bench"—the one piece of furniture in the big blue room— "and wait for Doctor Beckett to get finished. Which reminds me, I gotta get over there and lend a hand. I don't usually take this long to establish contact. But, you can chat with our staff psychia—"

"I've been abducted?"

"Huh?"

"That's the general plot of this movie, right?"

"Movie?"

"My hallucination. Great, now my own mind can't keep up…"

"You're not hallucinating, I told you—"

"I forgot what you said…"—House was suddenly aware that his heart was beating in his throat and his breath was stiffened—"…before…about what this all is…when you first came in…"

"Take it easy. That's just part of the after effects of the leap. Your mind's a little Swiss cheesed…"

"Your word…not mine…"

"…That's all. I'll explain it to ya again...its all right." Al spoke like a daycare counselor cajoling a child.

_Or Cameron mollycoddling a patient's mommy…_

"I'll explain," Al said again, softer.

"Answer my question!" The anger should have been expected, especially from the guy doing the shouting. But, like everything else here, the sudden burst of emotion came as much a surprise to House as the guy getting screamed at. "The subject of this delusion. Abduction? Afterlife?"—calmer again—"Sci fi or spiritual. I was never much for the Touched by An Angel stuff. I'm hoping for a more Aliens Versus Predator kinda thing." Suddenly, House got a flash of Amber. Not the one he'd had in his head when he poisoned himself on vicodin. The one he'd sat with on the bus...in a dream…after zapping his brain trying to find what was wrong with her...when she was still alive. They had both been wearing white. A spiritual fantasy. Foggy, and cloudy like Heaven. House was wearing white now. But, he was not at the pearly gates…no it was much more mother ship. Amber? _Yes! Yes! Cutthroat Bitch. Remember, damn it!_ "Am I waiting on an anal probe or seventy virgins?" The answer, House hoped, might point him to the ballpark where he might find out just what the hell was wrong with him.

Al sighed and began again. "You're inextricably involved in a top secret project in time-travel."


	4. God

Chapter Three: God.

Al had given the speech literally hundreds of times, so much so in fact, that the explanation had become pat, down to the timed inflections that always stressed certain words and stretched others, like a stage performance that needs no reworking. He kept a piece of string in his jacket pocket at all times. Following suit, the grizzled real admiral had come to expect a number of 'audience' reactions. The leapee was always, _always_, convinced that they were either dead, dreaming, or nuts. The latter was true here. No big whoop. Some were harder to calm down than others, and despite the best efforts of himself and Dr. Beeks, Quantum Leap's staff shrink, the displaced party never quite bought what was happening to them, to such a degree that usually required some sedation in worst case scenarios, and a cup of coffee for the more amiable. Irished up of course.

The topper came when, at the end of running through the paces with the string theory, making the loop, balling up the string, and the project, etc., Al finally took a deep breath and produced the mirror, revealing the leapee's new reflection, the aging, gray streaked, big beaked, Dr. Samuel Beckett. This somewhat vampiric gesture gave way to different reactions. Some would laugh nervously, cry, shout, flail, or hide under the bench and rock back and forth. However, in this special case, the only utterance off the sarcastic tongue was _cool_. Al had seen conniption fits and bladder catastrophes, but today, he got a smarmy smirk and _cool_. He sent for Dr. Beeks, of course. Something was amiss. He waited for her and kept his eyes glued to the new guy, who turned away from the mirror and hoppled back to the board. Al felt bad about not establishing contact with Sam yet, but Ziggy hadn't alerted anything pertinent, and he was afraid the new waiting room occupant's _cool_ might be an alertion of it's own. He would regret that decision later.

Meanwhile, inside the head of Dr. Gregory House, the cobwebs had all but fallen away. He still couldn't get a hold of a few bits of memory, but his consciousness was clear as crystal, and in that lay the dilemma. He was off the drugs, so it ruled out a reemergence of vicoden poisoning, and the over analysis of the situation only racked his brain and produced no answers. So, instead of beating against the prick to find the way out, he rubbed along it, chastising himself for the lame double entendre first. To unlock this puzzle he turned to his mind's own musings, brought to life in words through 'Al' and the vast universe of fantasy science and faith that his creative awareness had constructed. He wiped away the symptoms he'd written down with his hand until the white ink formed a blur on the board like a frosty window. He quickly perished the pleasant reflection and began writing. Al, ever curious it seemed, read the words aloud.

"God, Fate, or Time?"

"That's right, my ducking pro tem." The old House was back. The fear and panic had faded, and a new case awaited. _Yeah, that's right._ If he kept himself in the norm, soon, everything else would follow, and maybe he would put to rest his own mind's questioning of so called forces unseen…once and for all. He started by immediately crossing out God. "We're going to expose the force behind your body snatchers rip-off."

"Huh?"

House rolled his eyes, really tired of his mind's slow-witted approach to dealing with him. But, maybe it was doing it in order to somehow try to convince him of the reality. Before, when the illusion had been Amber, it had made no qualms about the apparition's falsehood and got out his musings and thoughts during a case in his same rapid-fire drollness. Maybe his mind's urge to accept the reality was another symptom? _Yes, perhaps—No! Focus on the new case! Act as you normally would! The answer is inside the 'Quantum Conundrum.'_

Al sensed the irritation. "Sorry, I was thinking about an olive skinned Navy nurse I met once. Wanna hear a story? Trust me. You'll love it. It involves cream and strawberries. The catch is there wasn't a plate, if ya catch my dri—"

_The horny part of my brain steps up to the plate._ House cleared his throat and explained, already hating the paradox of voicing the thoughts inside his head…to his head. "The Quantum Conundrum," he repeated the phrase out loud, "that you revealed with your colorful, if somewhat uninspired rendition of one man's journey through time and space, screwing with other people's lives." _Isn't that the same as what I do? Move from case to case, to…what was it the old, horny guy said…put things right that once went wrong? No…I'm in this for the puzzle, the challenge…but isn't the end result the same?_ "We're going to unravel the puzzle…who _or_ what is controlling Project Quantum Leap?"

"Oh yeah," Al said. "…the standing theory amongst the staff…"

"That _God_—" House's emphasis on God was particularly stressing and…dismissive all at once "—fate, or time was waiting for your guy to…leap…so that he or it could correct a past mistake. So…who is it really…Ideas?"

"How come you put a line through God?"

"Because I've already eliminated that possibility. God…the invisible, yet bearded man on permanent toga party mode in the sky…as much of a shock as this might be to you…doesn't exist."

"Why so dismissive? Does his existence threaten you?" The voice was sultry, yet firm and cut right to the bone. Dr. Beeks. _Enter the whip cracking part of my brain…so my consciousness has fragmented…_

"He can't threatened me if he doesn't exist," House greeted venomously, looking the ebony goddess up and down. Her plain clothes screamed career professional, but her eyes battered softy, woman with needs, or that's what the crotchety doctor told himself.

"Doctor House…bad deflector," she noted in an aside. "If you're going to fence, you best do better than repeating the question in an sentence. Let's move past elementary, shall we?"

House smirked. "Well…in that case…I am rubber and you are glue…but…honestly…I'd rather stick to you."

"The question stands, House," Beeks answered amidst Al's chuckles. Her death glare quieted him.

This was all so very much like one of his differentials. The faces on the team had changed…but not much else. House rubbed his forehead and leaned hard into the cane while he considered the God angle, plugging it into the Quantum Leap theory. It _was_ unlike him to quickly dismiss an idea without any evidence one way or another, except when God was concerned because well…obviously…no one could prove his existence. Then again, he couldn't disprove him, either. How could he remove him from the answer pool? "The standing theory concedes that the purposes of the leaps are to correct past mistakes. God doesn't make mistakes."

A disappointed silence among the duckling duo filled a short gap of time before the satisfied House smiled and said, "his will be done." The pen strayed across the board, bolding the line through God. "If anything…_you_ guys are God…jumping around in complete defiance of reality, anonymously keeping fairies and unicorns in the conversation while you discredit freewill… and the right to live the life you screwed up." And thus, Project Quantum Leap got its' first dose of Dr. House's prigdom. He carried on as if nothing had happened. "Which brings us to…fate. Ideas? Thoughts?"

"Admiral Calavicci!" The frantic, disembodied voice of Gooshie was met with a solemn acknowledgment.

"What is it, Gooshie?" Al's voice was lacking his typical assertiveness as he replayed House's words over and over again.

"Something terrible has happened!"

Suddenly, Al sprung to life. "Oh, Damn! Sam! I completely forgot! I left him out there blind! What happened?!" And the question that ruled both he and his friend's entire life. "What does he have to do to leap?!"

"He may be too late!"

"_I'm_ too late…." Al quietly corrected.


	5. Fate

Chapter Four: Fate.

Sometimes quantum leaping was like trying to grab the reins of a runaway carriage when there were none to take hold of. The advantage the old boy from Elk Ridge, Indiana usually had, was he knew where the wild horse was going, and if halted proficiently, the damage would be avoided. However, today, Sam had accepted grimly, he was to wonder blindly in fate's cruel grasp, just like everyone else. The notion left a foul taste on the tip of his tongue, and even as he sit, cradling the injured woman—_Doctor Hadley_, he remembered—he fought to keep his composure, filled with a mixture of anger and despair. When it happened, Sam hated—yes hated—accommodating destiny's unbending decisions, with every fiber in his soul. Project Quantum Leap's entire purpose had been in stark contrast to such a pathetic recognition. Destiny. Fate. _Bah!_ The lives altered for the better spat on the theory of providence every time Sam saw a new reflection. Now, the likeness he saw was the painful and teary stare of a cat eyed women. The longer time went by, the sooner Sam knew that glint would fade. Action would have to come soon. But the question wasn't when. It was how.

"Everyone out!" The orchestrated hostages had finally broken the nerves of their conductor, so heatedly, the harsh taskmaster flecked and shooed with his wand, clearing out the music hall where the compositions were one note and the impact…breath taking. It was not an expedient process, as much as the gunman would have like it. Clearing an entire staff of surgeons, the opened and exposed patient, plus the hospital personnel that had backed in, would be like running a parade route. Despite Sam's pleas, Doctor Hadley would not be leaving.

Amidst the hurried stamping of fleeing feet, the two prisoners spoke. "Looks like this is my final case," Hadley sputtered, continuously rapping the back of her head against the crook of Sam's arm. She was going into shock. He unperturbedly stroked her creamy cheek, staining it red like cabaret blush. He had done his best to use bits of torn surgical garb to tie a knot around her abdomen, and yet still the crimson flood enveloped them. "Could you tell Forman…I always…I always…liked Taub better." Her chuckle was stiff and poppy.

"Uh...I…"

"Doctors Chris Taub and Eric Foreman are part of the fellowship team with Remy Hadley here." Ah, the familiarly grating rattle of information soaked in the puff of a cheep cigar. And the sweet sound of technology meeting violence wasn't far behind. The expensive multicolored hand-link whizzed and buzzed under the blunt trauma being applied so freely. "Collapsed and vulnerable here went out with Doctor Foreman for a awhile…holy cow"—Al discovered the sexy, but dieing intern— "What a lucky dog. I'd like to have her operate on me." Al's typical banter sounded hampered by panic and remorse. Sam wasn't angry with him for what happened…how could he be after all these years? Years Al had wasted looking after him.

"Welcome back, Al," Sam whispered.

"Sam, I'm so sorry," the flashy Hologram professed. "Ziggy didn't say anything for the longest time. We all assumed you were handling things okay...and I got caught up…"

"With Tina?"

"Huh?"

Sam was suddenly aware that the shaken Dr. Hadley had been listening to the conversation. Well, Sam's side of it anyway. "Try not to speak," he coaxed.

"No, Sam, I'm married to Beth still…remember?"

That's right. Why did he keep forgetting that?

"Ziggy has been silently going haywire since you leaped in. She only just now started talking. Too late for little missy there...not _too_ late...i mean. Don't worry…we're going to fix it."

"She has a theory?" Sam muttered now, to keep his talking off the girl's radar. The still exiting commotion nearby helped.

"Uh…no. Matter of fact, she really doesn't know much of anything."

Odd. The leaps where the egotistical hybrid computer had been pushed to the point of being unable to gather information had been few. It had been those leaps where time had been in such a constant state of flux that locking on enough historical data to project a theory had been impossible. Every moment Sam was in this _House's _shoes, he was changing…or creating history. How? The only explanation he could fathom was that the original history had already resulted in House's death at the _exact_ point when Sam leaped in, but that didn't make sense. The immediate scene hadn't been dire or dangerous and the hostage taker was keen on keeping him alive, at least for the moment. The only other explanation was that somehow, in the few minutes Sam had been occupying this space, his actions had veered someone or something so far off course that Ziggy couldn't get a handle on it.

"All she can tell you is the bare essentials," Al read off the hand-link. "It's December twenty-third, two thousand and nine, and you're in Princeton, New Jersey—ugh, Dirty Jersey—The hospice here is Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. You're name is—"

"House."

"Uh—yeah—That's right. Gregory House. Diagnostician. Double specialty in infectious diseases and nephrolog_y_. Real hell raiser, too. Runs a diagnostic department like his own detective agency."

"A diagnostics department? That's damned near unheard of anymore."

"Praying to your inner deity," the now undivided gunman interjected. "Never figured you for the religious type."

"Oh boy," Al choked. He began feverishly stamping the hand-link's buttons. "Ziggy doesn't know who the hell this guy is. We're in the dark on this one."

Sam laid Hadley down flat and stood up, shooting a narrowed eyed, typically self righteous glare at his captor. "Is she going to die?"

"I'm sorry, Sam," Al confessed again, "I just don't know. It—"

"It all depends on you, _doctor _house," the red head sneered. "And if your track record on the matter is any indication of the future, I wouldn't bank on her walking out of here alive."

_There's a couple of things I'd advise you not to bank on, buddy. You're dealing with a man and his science, both beyond your limited comprehension._

"That sounded awfully well put together judging by the looks of this punker," House stated flatly, "but then again, overblown self righteousness brings out the poetry in people."

Sam winched his head and found his own face peering over his shoulder.

"This is Doctor House, Sam," Al introduced meekly, clutching the leapee's hand to maintain the visual and auditory connection. "He insisted he be here."

"So what did I do to this guy," House asked, seemingly unphased, staring at his gray-eyed doppelganger. "Kill his wife?"

"You killed my wife," the gunman unwarily confirmed.


	6. Time

Chapter Five: Time.

The entire room felt different than it had before Al and his guest had entered it, but for the life of him, Sam couldn't place his finger on it. And this strange gunman as well. All these confusing feelings were mish mashing together and crisscrossing, drawing a web around the entire congregation as though trying to reach Sam's Swiss cheesed brain. Why was he hiding from it? Perhaps the feeling of the unknown was strange to him now, after all this time. The muscle for it had atrophied, and hurt when he flexed it.

"She was sick all the time…"

"Oh!" House exclaimed. "Story time."

Sam did not share the doctor's mean spirited humor. Something about being in House's skin was ominous and heavy. He had a sense of the man's cruelty born carelessness, devil may care syndrome, and how it could lead here. Yet, he knew there was something more to it all, and if only he could convey it to his captor, maybe House would see it in himself.

"I mean…she was a sickly person," he unpredictably corrected himself. Not true, his desire to be perfectly clear seemed to jump out at Sam, but like everything else on this leap, he didn't know why. The man went to great links to choose his words carefully…no…to choose careful words…when it came to the pertinent issue at hand. Who did that remind him of? Sam's eye began to study closer, this 'lone nut.' His gun pointed warily at him, the man paced back and forth, and continued. "It was always something. Sometimes she couldn't get out of bed. A flu…fever…muscle aches…dry cough…nausea…"his voiced cracked unusually high. Emotion had overcome him. He paused and took a moment to gather his words.

Taking advantage of his invisibility, House stepped forward, using Al to keep himself steady. "He's listing the symptoms like a case history…and his little tear fest—"

"Crocodile," Sam quietly interrupted, exchanging a glance with House. Both men nodded.

* * *

House was not an easy man to enthrall, but the grandeur of it all had somehow swayed him into treating it like any other day, with a particularly interesting puzzle and in doing so, he had forgotten that it was an hallucination. It _was_ so real. _No, it is not! Focus!_

He was anxious to hear the man's sob story about why something he had done or said during the course of curing his wife had led to—wait—the scenario was so familiar. Déjà vu? No...It had happened…sort of. That man…they never caught…he had shot him…his mind had gone off somewhere. House peered closely at the punk rocker passing by back and forth. It was—wasn't the same man, maybe? The Swiss cheesing reared its ugly head again. He couldn't remember. And his mind seemed more interested in cracking jokes in lieu of his rash of hand holding with older men. That, and the aroma of cheep cigar and beeping plastic legos. His consciousness was firing all over the place again. _Focus._ He had fallen into a hallucination before…yes…. constructed an entire story around it. _My Seven Percent Solution._

"You wouldn't even see her," the man said, breaking into his jigsaw thoughts. "We waited in the ER for _hours_… They looked at her…said you'd be down to see. An interesting case, they said. We had a special case. They ran some tests. She nearly went unconscious. Her respiration was—"

Her _respiration_? Who the hell talked like that...that wasn't a doctor?

"—Low Grade fever, tachycardia—"

And the listing again.

"—cyanosis—"

_She turned blue?_

The performance so far was unconvincing. His voice was flat, the emotional pauses planned. A word—phrase—kept slipping away from House that he desperately wanted to say but he just couldn't. _Everybody lies._

_

* * *

_Sam had barely caught a word of it. He was focused on his bizarre…gestures? He seemed distracted, not by the story, it seemed, though it may have been part of it. He made no effort to maintain eye contact, when always in that situation, an ardent proclamation of the truth pierced the victim of the verbal tirade directly…right in the eyes. Even Al noticed. "Sam," he said, "Who is he talking to?"

_What? _Sam eyed him in anticipation.

"It looks like he's taking dictation." _From a third party. Like you…and me._

_

* * *

_House could feel the answer at his door. He knew if he listened a little longer he'd have it. _If only Wilson were here. I'd have figured this out already. Speaking of—I wanted to tell him something…yeah…I came here—this room—to tell him. He was with a patient…opened up. _His memory stopped there.

"When you finally hobbled in…you called me an idiot. Said she had the flu and told us to _get the hell out of here_…she was dead three days la—"

Rapid respiration, cyanosis, tachycardia, and low-grade fever usually indicate frank hydrocarbon pneumonitis.

"She was guzzling gasoline. It's Munchausens," House smiled. "A liar's disease."

* * *

"You're lying," Sam confirmed.

It stopped the wily eyed shooter in his tracks. He suddenly straightened up as if coming out of a trance. _A possession_, the thought blazed into Sam's head.

"And?" Carrot top asked, awaiting the crescendo.

Sam looked down at Hadley. She was staring at him. Frozen glare. She was dead?! No. Alive…frozen in place. It suddenly occurred to Sam that in all this time of standing here, basically a hostage, that no one from the outside, including most intriguingly the anxiously awaited police, had yet to make contact. Sam broke from his neutral stance and moved toward the door out of the operating room. Their host had lowered his weapon, and had cocked an eyebrow devilishly, daring him to finally arrive at the conclusion. Out the small port windows, Sam witnessed a ghostly occurrence. More specifically, a ghost town. The next set of doors leading out of the scrub room opened to a long hallway, showcasing a beautiful hospital setting…abandoned. There was no one. Anywhere. It was like time had stopped.

He knew what was wrong…why Ziggy couldn't lock down on anything. The gunman, the strangeness and…standing still. Everything standing still.

Sam turned back to the smirking, crimson haired foe, and put out his hand. The other man nodded and touched it. Skin to skin.

The façade faded. Red turned to blond, bleach to stark ivory, and rounded age to chiseled youth.

"Hello, Doctor Beckett," _she_ said. "You can let go of Admiral Calavicci now, Doctor House. I can see you."


	7. From Life to Life

Chapter Six: From Life to Life.

Her hair was the color of a pale sun. Her skin was bleached and her lips bright red. The mauled suit didn't do her justice. Her statuesque fame was better matched wrapped in a corset and a pair of nylons. Often splendor is the guise of malevolence. And this was no truer than right then. Her smile mawkishly applauded Sam's deduction, though hidden behind it was an agenda that Sam knew was at its apex. He only hoped that the plan itself had been like the scripting of her performance as the unnamed gunman. Poorly conceived. Yet, he knew he wouldn't be so lucky. The lazy recital was only prologue, and evil loved to let him guess the hand, because though he might have had a royal flush, the game on the table was gin.

Al nearly ripped House's arm off with his hysterics. "It's an evil leaper, Sam! That's why Ziggy couldn't lock on to anything. This loony was screwing her up!"

This much Sam already knew, but with the game as it was, he didn't have anything to play. All he could do was wait. "What do you want?" He asked. The obvious and certainly most pertinent question. Maybe he could get her talking.

She wagged her finger at him, a red nailed albino spider leg. The gesture seemed more a mimicry than an actual tease at scolding. She moved slowly, but with distinct purpose, like a robot or maybe just a really cunning witch. "Come now, what player lays out his hand before the game's ending, much less to a spectator." Her voice was accented. Germanic. Ever so slightly. Flat English with the tiniest rumble of a foreign tongue. Had a certain tickle on the eardrum. It would be the last he'd hear of it.

Sam didn't hear the gunshot. He just knew it had occurred, even though the pain didn't come until several seconds afterward. He knew because of the faint hint of smoke rising off of the barrel. One of those small particulars he'd sheltered in his Swiss cheesed brain. Not even a decade and a half of leaping could wash away those tiny details.

* * *

The blood seeped into the white landscape like oil bubbling up out of the ground. House took half a step forward on his bad leg and winced, falling to one knee. Sam was there to greet him face to face, before collapsing onto his back. House threw out his hands, but to no avail. He turned his head toward Al, but found him nowhere. Sam was dead. The weakening connection had faded his image…but…why hadn't House gone with him? Sam was dead. He was subject to the same rules, right? Isn't that what the guy with bad breath had said? He wasn't in the imaging chamber anymore…but he wasn't where Beckett was. Limbo. _Looks like the rules have changed. _He swiped at the limp, lifeless image of Beckett a couple more times before he conceded and stood back up, to face down his killer. "Evil leaper?" He asked, with more than just a hint of sarcasm. "Evil hooker is more like it. Evil is subjective," he went on as calmly as possible. "You don't think you're evil. You wouldn't have gone all through this trouble just to kill him, either."

"He _thinks_ we're evil. As long as it keeps him doing as he does, it makes no difference."

"What did you want with him?"

"With you."

* * *

Sam was _dead_.

He choked. The squawk that yelped from his throat might have passed for a good Burgess Meredith impression. He looked down, expecting to find blood mingling with his last breaths. Instead, yellow bile wormed around a swirl of running water, down a black hole. A drain. In an ivory sink. The same color as her skin. With the echoing flush of the faucet, came the flood of his memory again. The Swiss cheese effect fast-forwarded. _Sam Beckett. Dr. Sam Beckett._ _You have seven degrees, oh yeah, and I forgot to mention…you're trapped in time. _Holy hell. Had he leaped? How? The bullet had pierced him. He was a goner. And what of Doctor House?

* * *

"Trying to revenge something I do to you in the future?" House hypothesized. "Killing him doesn't really faze me. Not the Mother Teresa type. I don't _bleed_ for everyone. I can give you a couple of names, though, if you really want to make me cry."

"Damn hard to help someone when you're a ghost, eh?" Venom ate through every word. "Not like you were about making contact with anymore before. Not your style. I decided we should do it your way."

"Making contact? Do what my way? Sex via talky talky, no touchy patty lovey. There are easier ways for _phone_ sex. It's called a _phone_…admittedly…you might just get my voice mail. Prerecorded love. My favorite."

"Deflecting isn't going to help you."

"Being vague and generalized isn't going to help you make me understand."

"New differential," she commanded in House's own patronizing tone. "Patient is a fifty-six year old man with sudden stomach pains and fainting spells. Suspect possible trauma. Diagnosis?"

* * *

He looked up. On the other side of the mirror, a gaunt man loomed, leaning over the washbowl, his knuckles white around the edges. His expression was blank, sad, and inquisitive, all at the same time. Hard to tell, covered in a thicket of wily facial hair, grown with a purpose…to obscure and conceal. Yet, it hid nothing. The stuff up top was salt and pepper, also wild, like a wizard's, secreting a mad brilliance in the guise of insanity. Who was this strange man? A wizard? Why did that distinction keep repeating itself in Sam's head? Strangely dressed for a magic maker. A dress coat over a T-shirt and jeans. _How wonderfully eighties._ He stole a glance at his feet. _Yep, gray tennis shoes._

His eyes focused back on the mirror. Inside it, the bathroom door behind him opened. A woman stepped in. Long, raven hair. Big pretty eyes. Had some mileage on her, but she looked good. She looked like she hadn't always been pretty, but once it had flourished; there was no stopping it. Mileage. The word stuck. Like a worn but loved motorcycle. Ridden hard…but not _too _hard…

"House," she said.

Nearly jumping out of his skin, he spun around to face her, batting his hand into something midway through the rotation. It sounded like M & M's hitting a gym floor…_at basketball practice._ He remembered…

The woman fell out of sight. After a short interlude of tattle tile, she reappeared with a prescription bottle, hovering it under his nose like smelling salt. "Are you going to take this?" It was bottle of Vicoden.

"Yeah," clasping his hands around it, he scanned her white, doctor's coat for a name-tag. _Lisa Cuddy._ "Is that for me?" Blurred by his peripheral vision, he saw a burgundy folder clasped between her thumb and forefinger.

* * *

"He was shot," House replied.

"Maybe I should inject him with chicken noodle soup."

The sentence struck him. He'd heard it before…where? Somewhere in the disorganized catalogue in his head, a man was digging through a filling cabinet, blindfolded, for that piece of memory. "You _weren't_ lying."

* * *

Cuddy held it out. "I know you've already made your one patient a week quota, but this woman has been to three specialists an—"

"I'll take it." Sam snatched the file and pocketed the vicoden, the open container's contents spilling out into it. It was all second nature. He knew he had to take it. Didn't know why. Didn't even want to look at the file. He'd do it. Whatever she wanted.

He was aware of the cocked eyebrow staring him down. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he answered flatly, brushing passed her. He had his free hand on the clammy door handle when she stopped him.

"Your leg," she observed. "Its…better?" Leaning next to the sink was a crutch without an owner. A cane, more precisely.

He held out his hand for it.

Never taking her eyes off of him, she placed it in his hands. "How many of those did you take?"

"None."

"Your patient is in the ER."

"I'll find it."

* * *

"Derrick Mercer and wife Amanda Mercer. 6732 Autumn Lane, Princeton, New Jersey. You told the nurse to inject her with noodle soup. And he took her home where she died, three days later."

"If she hadn't been guzzling gasoline—" House argued.

"Munchausen's is a real disease. Blaming it on idiocy will not help you. _Her_ idiocy anyway. _Yours_ on the other hand..." The leaper countered.

"Help me what?"

"Change."

"People don't change," House scoffed. "Unless it's for the worse. His old lady dies, so he picks up a gun and—"

"You ruined his life." Her plainness was aggravating.

"You beat me to it. _You _did this."

"_He_ picked up the gun and came here. _He_ shot Hadley. _He_ was going to shoot you. I interfered...for your sake."

"Why? To teach me a lesson by doing more damage? And what…am I supposed to say sorry? I can't control other people."

"You can control yourself."

He nodded at Hadley and Beckett. "You think you owe _them_ an apology?"

"Sometimes you have to hurt someone to help someone."

"You're hurting them…to help me? Doesn't seem too saintly to me. Godly if you go by certain definitions."

"You do the same thing…and then some. You break rules. You spit in everyone's face…to help people. You play God."

"To solve the puzzle," he corrected. "_This_ is just some power play. And all you've done is wrap it in a flag like _him_—" _Beckett _"—You can't do things like this."

"My methods differ from Doctor Beckett's…and yours."

"I don't dress mine up in a special cause. That makes us different. You're just as stupid as he is. You've different colors and stripes on your flag…but it's still a flag. It waves like a flag, inspires idiots like a flag, and gets people killed like a flag. Idiots. And you think you can save everybody this way…_your_ way. So much better than the other guy's, no matter who dies…or lives when they had probably been better off dead."

"You think you can cure everybody."

"The puzzle. A problem."

Her spidery fingers regarded the dead Beckett. "Then consider this your final problem."

House opened his mouth to speak again. The fair-haired woman pointed the gun and fired.

* * *

The hustle and bustle was a nightmare. A giant hurricane of bruised elbows and gunshot wounds. Didn't matter. He honed in on them like a divining rod. They were sitting alone, the man cradling his wife, eyes swollen with old tears. His hair was burning red like a hyper nova's afterglow. They wanted an answer—_he _did. _She_ already knew.

"It's Munchausens," Sam irrupted suddenly

"What—" The man began. "Who are—"

"Doctor House. You asked to see me. Don't speak," Sam interrupted. "Just listen. It's Munchausens. There's treatment."

"I don—"

"Your wife has been ingesting gasoline."

The man turned to his barely conscious wife. Her cheeks turned red under the blue stains, giving away to deep purple. Then came fresh tears of her own.

"Don't be upset with her. It's treatable. She needs you now. with consoling and therap—" He never finished. Suddenly, he could hear a voice. An acquaintance from his past. _Books are full of stories of the dead saving the living._ He leaped.

* * *

The bullet faded into nothing and scattered into invisible matter. The woman raised a hushing finger and enveloped in a blue light. In a flash she was gone. The room washed out to black. The dream was over. The delusion had ended. Forever.

Suddenly, House sensed commotion. He could feel the façade of the waiting room, the fluorescent hum and sour smell, once again protected by the future. The goofy suit and cigar stepped in front of him. Al. He spoke but nothing came out. He couldn't hear him. House, in turn, pointed his finger at the scene that was unfolding before them. He could see himself again. Standing before the eyes of an angry surgeon.

* * *

Sam, still in House's stead, ran his fingers along his belly and found no wound. Instead, the crinkly windbreaker sound of scrubs taunted him. He looked up, finding the scene that had dazed him with wide-eyed horror upon his entry into this leap. A bloody and bruised patient under the knife. He could feel Hadley's hand on his back.

"House!" The man was agitated now. "Either you make your point or get out of here!"

"House," the younger woman's voice coaxed, "isn't this the part where you dazzle everyone with your epiphany?"

Standing invisible in the room with him, Al. House was next to him clutching his arm, in a Femi suit, with Sam's face, looking like the naive scientist had when he first stepped into the accelerator.

"Check in your scrubs," House recalled, "I wanted to ask him out." He pointed to the incensed surgeon.

Al's gaze got really big.

Sam dug around under the scrubs until he found an inseam pocket. From it, he pulled two big, floppy, ever ostentatious, pieces of laminated paper. "Hey—uh—"

"Wilson," House interjected.

"Uh—Wilson—I've got passes to a—"He examined the giant swoopy letters "—monster truck rally tonight."

"Drop the Grave Digger…"

"Uh—"

"Drop his name."

"The—Digger will be there."

The surgeon's features softened. "Hell yeah, I'm in. Now get out of here before I put you on the slab, too."

"I'll meet you tonight," Sam said, eyeing House purposefully. "I have a place I have to be first."

House nodded. "Yeah."


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue.

It should have been the part in class where everyone reviews what they learned. There was supposed to be a poignant message that summed it up and left those involved with a wistful totality. Instead, after giving Sam the address, House stood cagily, burning holes in the whiteboard. _God, Fate, or Time?_ What was the reason? What lesson could House learn from the jumbled ramblings of an evil leaper? Evil leaper. Such a ludicrous notion being used casually in his vocabulary was more infuriating than not understanding. The _entire_ experience had been an exercise in not understanding. Whether it was his own inability to come to terms with anything that had gone on in the last hour, or some unseen forces attempts to quantify him, it didn't matter. The result remained the same. Time went on. And House was still miserable. Who was to say that had every question he still pondered been answered, that anything would change? _Change_. There was that word again. All of this, she had said, was to make him change. People didn't change. Solving the puzzle wouldn't make him content. But, damn it, he wanted to _know_.

"He's arrived," Dr. Beeks prompted gently.

House didn't answer.

"Why agonize over it?"

"Because it doesn't make sense. If it doesn't make sense…"

"Then it isn't real. You think this is all a delusion. If that's true, then get it over with as soon as possible, and disregard it." The advice went against the entire project. They were supposed to help people, but what do you tell a man who can't—won't be helped. That light bulb has to want to change. "He's waiting for you."

Their encounter with the other leaper had altered the rules, rather the mechanics, of their communication. House could now see Sam and visa versa without the aide of Al. Which didn't bother the admiral one bit. The unexplained disappearances and reappearances amidst the presence of a malevolent Marlene Dietrich clone had spooked him enough to go home for the remainder of the mission, to his wife and children. He held them close through the night, though did not sleep himself. Not for a long while.

* * *

The blinding glow of the holo-door heralded the hologram pro tem into the night quest. House quietly approached his doppelganger on the curb. Neither man had said much about their separate experiences, despite each other's smoldering interest. In Sam's case, he feared future missions _more_ than what had already transpired here. It was already the past, but knowing other leapers were still out there, interfering, scared him more than the invisible presence guiding him into doom's wake leap after leap. What frightened him the most was his lack of assuredness that this leaper had been evil, like previous leapers he'd encountered. Despite the methods, everything that had resulted had been in direct contravention of what he _knew_ to be wickedness. Or so he thought. Sam had to check to be sure, and even then he wouldn't ever truly believe he had done right on this undertaking. _Undertaking. Bad choice of words. _

The home looked quaint. White picket fence, the works. Like something off of the Andy Griffith Show. Small, but clean and well taken care of, though, it looked like more porch than house. Had an unusual midwestern appeal. _Looks can be deceiving. _Determined not to waste another moment distracting himself with the décor, Sam, and his undetectable partner, stepped forward. Sam almost suggested House ring the doorbell. Humor didn't seem appropriate. While they waited for an answer, Sam instinctively tried to adjust his tie to alleviate the heat. He didn't have one. The dress up jacket was making him sweat, not to mention the cane and its slickery grip, the unnecessary use of which was already causing a strange and painful popping in his arm.

As the door swung open, they both expected to see a murder scene. Instead they were greeted with a familiar brush of red hair. He had on jeans and a cut off muscle shirt. His frame was much too thin for it. Must have just gotten home. "Hi." He said questioningly.

"Hi," Sam and House replied simultaneously. "Hi," Sam repeated, clearing his throat and hiding a smile.

"Can I help you?" He didn't even recall meeting him…as House, of course. Maybe that was a good thing.

"Yeah…" Sam really hadn't thought out this exchange. It's a wonder he had been living other people's lives for so long. "I…uh…you may not remember me…"

"Who is it?" A soft voice called deep within the house. A woman emerged. "Doctor House!" She happily shouted. "What are you doing here?!"

Sam's unconvinced smile brimmed from ear to ear. He shot House a quick look. "Oh, I'm just making a follow up. I uh…"

The woman pushed passed her husband and hugged him. House groaned like he had been stabbed. After she pecked Sam on the cheek, House bit into his wrist.

"Would you like to come in?" She asked gleefully.

Sam glanced over at House, who shook his head. His eyes looked like Sam had caught him in a pair of headlights. _Time to let the deer scurry off back to the forest_. "No...I'm sorry. I really…just wanted to see how you were doing."

"We were just sitting down to dinner. You could join us," the man offered. From inside, the loud cries of an angry toddler drew its desired attention. "Meet the newborn."

"No, I'm sorry. I have a place to be…I'm sorry."

"I don't say sorry that often, _jack_," House finally spoke up.

Sam turned and walked back toward the curb before they could argue. He felt their confusion searing a gap into the back of his head. To come and go so abruptly would make for an uneasy meal tonight. "Call me!" Sam shouted. "We'll do lunch sometime."

"Great," House huffed. They wouldn't. This peculiar encounter would scare them off. And soon they would forget the quirky Dr. House, and what he had done for them. How could they? He gave them an _answer_. More than he could say about Sam Beckett or the unnamed leaper. Hell, maybe it _was_ for the better.

At the curb, Sam waited for the door to close and the family to return to its altered life before he spoke again. "You felt nothing."

"Nope."

Sam chuckled.

"What?" House didn't expect that reaction.

"Neither did I."

"Liar."

"Look—"

"I could be crazy…or not. My leg hurts, and I'm miserable." House had hoped Sam could have changed that. It was obvious now. Observing the leap had instilled the possibility of a spiritual awakening even inside House's skepticism. The thrill of being proven wrong. Just like the cases he handled. Each time, he silently held out for the patient's integrity. _This time they won't lie to me._ _This time there'll be a meaning. This time, I'm wrong. _To know him, you'd never guess it. Each time, they'd let him down. Human nature would intervene and bring out the worst in the people he treated. The worst possible scenario. The one thing he always had, though, at the end of it all, was an answer. A diagnosis. Not this time. "I was just some spectator."

This was the part of the leap where Sam made one last ditch effort to reach his charge. However, the word _spectator_, summed up his own feelings about this mission, too, and any confidence in House to that end would be misplaced. It would be called out a lie, like before, when the truth was, like House, he _really_ didn't feel anything…not about this leap. He too, had experienced a sense of being a sideline attraction, like an onlooker running around with no true means other than a few predetermined steps like a puppet on a string. The ends brought him no closure. Not when he'd been introduced to another puppet master, one whose idea of aide was carefully placed destruction and bending the laws of actuality. He would be happy to let his memory Swiss cheese this leap when he moved on. Like House, he'd begun to think it all just a hallucination. That this had been a stop off…a detour, from reality, that he hoped never to cross into again.

"I didn't get an answer," House said after a long breathe.

"Or maybe it's just not the answer you wanted," Sam replied, vocalizing both of their thoughts.

"Mirage or not," House concluded, "I want more out of it."

"Well, House," Sam countered, unaware of his impending departure, "you can't always get what you want—"

He leaped.

To describe leaping was to describe dieing. The heart would race, the breath stiffen and shortened as if an invisible hand were choking the air out of Sam's throat. His life and all the little holes his Swiss cheesed brain couldn't grasp would flood back and flash before his eyes. He became calm and knowledge of his body would fade away and he'd watch his life go by, his consciousness sinking deeper and deeper into a warm pool. Then a surge of electricity would call him back. All in an instant. The blink of an eye.

This time, however, the numbness was more inviting than usual. It caressed him, surrounded him. The void never felt this pleasant, this _lastly_ contented. No one to ask anything of him, no price to pay for one more life to live. _Free_. The right word finally came to him, making all others pale in comparison. This, of course, like all things in poor Sam Beckett's life, was to be short lived.

A tingle in his wrist brought with it the realization of his body. He could feel it out there somewhere, as if his head were away from the rest of his corporal being and his spirit was still using its sense of touch to find it, but had only found his wrist. And he didn't try to help it. He was so _relaxed_. He was forgetting himself. So much so that he took his first breathe of this new freedom and found water greeting his lungs.

His head shot out of the bathtub. Still gagging on the tub's contents, he flung himself over the edge onto the floor. His waterlogged back smacked hard against it. His groan came out as a gargle. He rolled onto his stomach and let the heaves come for what seemed like days, his cheek mashed against cold tile in the interim. And then stillness. Days truly minutes, his wrist nagged for his attention. No longer a tingle, pain reached him for the first time. He ignored it. His thoughts needed collecting. The first one, as always, was his name, somehow jumbled and lost in the leap. Samuel 'Sam' Beckett. Social Security number. 563-86-9801. Profession. Quantum physicist. Status. Trapped in time.

The next bit of information his brain reached out for was what was he doing before his leap brought him here. A selective problem, Sam could not always remember his previous leap, at least not right away. Sufficed to know that he had done so. He rolled onto his back and took his first uninhibited mouthful of air. Feeling returning to his body, he quickly noticed the wet, sticky substance under him. The familiar touch gave way to an epiphany. He confirmed this by shakily raising his wrist into his vision.

He had leaped into a suicide.

"Oh boy," he exhaled.

The End

Sam Beckett's Extraordinary Time-Travel Adventure Continues.

_If you are interested in continuing onto the new leap, check my profile for the story entitled Belonging to the Night, a Frasier/QL crossover._


End file.
